New church planting start in Myanmar

The Evangelical Free Church of Myanmar invited our team to help them with church planting. This is an association of 181 churches with 50 missionaries. However, they don't provide any basic training for their missionaries. But, before sending us to equip their missionaries, they wanted to go through the training themselves. We started Nov. 6 and had 4 wonderful days of training and interaction, followed by a day of evaluation and strategic planning with the leaders. The pictures that follow speak for themselves. If you have ay questions please don't hesitate to email me at gene.wilson@efca.org

It was a real blessing to reconnect with my friend Chhuana in Yangon, the capital.

The next day I boarded a flight to go North to Kalaymyo, where the Miso people live in the mountains.

There I met up with two trainers on our team who had flown in from Thailand. Two other missionaries on the Asia leadership team also arrived before I did. George, the EFM president welcomed us all.

The Miso people of Myanmar were evangelized in the 1950s by one of their tribe from India, the man pictured below. He started one church, that later started a church in Yangon. But for many years it was just the 2 churches in Kaleymyo and Yangon.

We are told that the founder accurately taught the Word of God and to this day, this group has stayed faithful to it. But many were persecuted for their faith.

In 2002 the churches started reproducing in Yangon and now there are 4 mature churches and 10 house churches or Bible study groups. They all came together for Children's Day.

It was a family atmosphere. Lots of music and stories for all.

 In true Burmese fashion, the children take off their shoes to go on the rug. 

Children prepared memory verses and songs.

Here they are running into the library. 

It was my birthday. But they weren't singing for me. Part of Children's Day is singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. That was the highlight of the day.

Then they went around with the cake and everyone ate from the same spoon.

The skyline is riddled with Pagoda towers in this Buddhist country. After our training Chhuana took me to visit the most famous pagoda in Myanmar - really, as you will see below it was a village of pagodas and statues of Buddha, in every shape and size.

This is a picture of the diamonds on top of the above pagoda. People give them as offerings to curry the favor of Buddha.

Here they are doing ritual washings of Buddha. They also offer incense, ring bells, buy gold leaf and place in on the statues, kneel and pray and walk in circles the represent the cycle of reincarnation.

The biggest statue of Buddha in Myanmar.

This is also Buddha, with feminine traits.

When they leave, they have no assurance that anyone has really heard their prayers. But they hope and they return. They need to meet the high priest who can intercede for them to the Father.

These church planters have a challenging task sharing the gospel to Buddhists.

This family has dedicated their lives to reach those who follow Buddha. Paul shows how Buddha's 4 nobles truths point to the need for a Savior. The 8-fold path that Buddha taught is impossible to follow in human strength and there is nothing to take away sin in their religion.

The man is the center was a Buddhist monk from age 9 to 20. But he left the monastery dissatisfied.  Finally a friend shared about Jesus. When he accepted Christ and started going to church, his family disowned him. Today he is an effective evangelist among Buddhists.

We taught a group of 18 pastors and leaders how to make disciples and plant churches in a way that empowers them to reproduce.

After they learn the 7 fruitful practices, they are able to get up front and use gestures to teach them to others.

Here they are talking about "6" - the sixth practice, gathering disciples for worship in small communities.

While we were working with the men, missionary wives were teaching and encouraging the women. In one town they had 150 women show up!

Before leaving we had a very special goodbye dinner. Fish and veggies- very healthy!

 This boy at children's day expresses his thanks. And we join him in thanking you for helping us to prepare workers in the harvest. They loved the principles we taught. We were invited back to teach level- 1 to their 50 missionaries and they will sent 2 of their leaders to team teach with us.

  

Church planting advance in the Balkans

September 22, 2017

Gene leaves tomorrow for Belgrade, Serbia, then drives four hours to Leskovac, in the south, close to Macedonia. He will be working with Ritch Trca, a colleague who lives in Prague. You may remember that Linda and I went on an exploratory trip last fall to meet the Roma (Gypsy) church planters there.

From September 25-29, we will be equipping about 30 Roma leaders interested in Church Planting. Miki Kamba, a Roma leader from central Serbia, is inviting people from Balkan ethnic groups that were once enemies, to join hands for a new church planting movement. He will be coordinating, leading worship, and doing some teaching. Please pray for the three of us. On our skype call this week Miki said that forty people had signed up and they are still waiting to hear from Roma from other Balkan countries.

Please pray that everyone that God wants involved in a new wave of church planting for Serbia and the region, would be there. Pray for Miki Kamba.

Please pray for God to provide $1,320 which represents less than 5euros a day for each trainee and covers their noon meal, manual and translation/interpretation into the Serb language.

From there Gene and Ritch go to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is a fascinating, and spiritually needy place. Fifty-five percent of the people are Muslim, descendants of families converted under the Ottoman Empire. The minority Christians are mostly Orthodox and Catholic. There are only 3,000 Evangelical Christians in this country. The capital, Sarajevo, with a population of 350,000, has only three visible churches and a smattering of house churches. Our missionaries went to help with physical and spiritual needs at the end of the Balkan war, and stayed to form a small house church movement. Now they are passing the baton to the Bosnian leaders. It will primarily be a ministry to help missionaries transition to a new role, and pass the baton to Bosnians. We also will discuss plans to further support the local house church leaders with training and coaching.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer. We are seeing much fruit. Ten years ago, Gene developed a Spanish Church Planting Course that continues to be used by God to impact Latin America. Seven years ago, we helped leaders from Africa develop their own curriculum for equipping African church planters. It is now used in 31 countries of Africa, and 20,000 have been through at least one of the levels of training. To God be the glory!

The Roma don’t have much. We would like to help by providing $1,320 to cover a noon meal each day, and the cost for interpreters and materials. If you are able to help, please contribute whatever God puts on your heart, one of the three ways indicated below. Thank you so much for helping us equip church planters and leaders in this region that has been devastated and fragmented by war.

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Gene Wilson